Homeopathy is a natural healthcare therapy which can be used alone or in conjunction with conventional medicine.

The word 'homeopathy' is derived from the Greek language, and means similar suffering. The basis of homeopathy is that like cures like (also known as the Law of Similars). A substance that produces certain symptoms in a healthy person will cure those symptoms in someone who is ill. For example, the remedy allium cepa is made from onion and is used to treat hay-fever symptoms where the sufferer has runny eyes and nose - the same symptoms produced in most people when they cut an onion. Homeopathic remedies are derived from a range of substances, most commonly from plants and minerals. Many of the substances used are poisonous in their raw form, and so are diluted to make them safe before being administered. A bit of history... It was Hippocrates (460 - 370 BC) who first recognised that like cures like. He wrote "by similars the sickness develops and by the employment of the similar, the sickness is cured." On the island of Kos he established the Asclepian School of Medicine which embraced what we might now call a holistic method of healing. The mental and emotional state of the patient were treated as much as the physical body. It was not until the late 18th century that homeopathy in its modern form was established, by a German physican, Samuel Hahnemann. Disillusioned by the barbaric medical practices of the day (blood-letting and leeching) he stopped practicing medicine and instead earned his living as a translator. It was whilst translating the works of a Scottish physican, William Cullen, that Hahnemann read about the the drug Chinchona (quinine) that was being used to treat malaria. Samuel Hahnemann Hahnemann experimented by taking some of the drug himself and within a few days he developed the symptoms of malaria. When he stopped the quinine, the symptoms subsided. Over the subsequent years Hahnemann developed a method of diluting substances whilst shaking and banging the liquid, known as succussion. Since Hahnemann's time, homeopathy has grown to become one of the most widely used healthcare systems in the world. In the UK it is increasingly popular with sales of homeopathic medicines growing by around 6% a year.